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Goodbye, corporal punishment. Hello, capital punishment. Improved performance and new revenue streams may be on the education horizon, complete with cash registers outside detention halls.

A news-media kerfuffle erupted this week with word that the Noble Network of Charter Schools had collected nearly $400,000 in disciplinary fees from students since 2008 for infractions including not tucking in shirts, being late for class, bringing chips to school, dozing off and not properly tying shoelaces.

We already knew about fines at Noble since The Chicago Reader, WBEZ Radio and Catalyst Chicago, an education journal, had reported it for more than a year. The recent news peg was disclosure by a group of Noble critics of total fines collected via a system that starts at $5.

There are 6,500 students at 10 high schools at Noble. The schools perform much better than Chicago public high schools as a whole, but they are still quite selective, so it is hard to get an accurate comparison. And still almost half of their students fail state achievement exams, and pass rates vary widely by campus.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel, our heat-seeking Missile and a strong proponent of charters, heralds Noble for knowing the “secret sauce” of strong educational performance. But challenges posed by a high-poverty student population remain daunting, no matter the sauce.

Michael Milkie, the Noble chief executive, strongly justifies his system by saying a focus on small infractions puts a lid on potentially larger ones and results in safe environments and less distractions for students who do behave.

There are experts who buy into the notion of behavior modification through swift, modest penalties. But the Noble method elicited divergent responses from several principals who asked not to be identified.

One finds the system disgusting, while another considers it an intriguing alternative to his only real punishment tool, which is suspension.

Colin Greer, a Scottish-bred educator who is president of the New World Foundation, which pursues a politically liberal agenda, reiterated such qualms. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is a former chairman of his board.

Greer is an ideological counterpart to William Bennett, the former secretary of education who wrote “The Book of Virtues,” a set of moral tales from a conservative perspective.

Greer said the Noble system undermined two critical aims of public education: preparing children for living in a democracy and learning to live with one another.

He likens it to teaching by Pavlovian response, referring to Ivan Pavlov, the Russian psychologist who did pioneering work on conditioned responses.

“You’re responding to punishment, like one of Pavlov’s dogs,” Greer said. “You’re not teaching how to behave in a democracy, where you behave in the best interests of a larger community.”

He said the fines were absurd, and at best they created rote, reflex responses and not the sort of flexibility and self-motivation needed in a modern economy. http://www.chicagonewscoop.org/warren-charters-discipline-fines-crude-
misguided/ insane; how can untied shoe laces and shirts not tucked in compare to the things students have been SUSPENDED over? This creates an incredible burden on those with little money to spare and is in my opinion completely over the top....not to mention that $400,000 is a nice little "kitty" for the school.

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Officials at the rapidly expanding network, heralded by Mayor Rahm Emanuel as a model for the city, say the fees offset the cost of running the detention program and help keep small problems from becoming big ones. Critics say Noble is nickel-and-diming its mostly low-income students over insignificant, made-up infractions that force out kids administrators don’t want.

“We think this just goes over the line … fining someone for having their shoelaces untied (or) a button unbuttoned goes to harassment, not discipline,’’ said Julie Woestehoff, executive director of the Chicago advocacy group Parents United for Responsible Education, which staged protests last week over the policy after Woestehoff said she was approached by an upset parent

Students at Noble schools receive demerits for various infractions — four for having a cellphone or one for untied shoelaces. Four demerits within a two-week period earn them a detention and $5 fine. Students who get 12 detentions in a year must attend a summer behavior class that costs $140.

Superintendent Michael Milkie said the policy teaches the kids — overwhelmingly poor, minority and often hoping to be the first in their families to attend college — to follow rules and produces in a structured learning environment. http://times247.com/articles/charter-school-touts-success-with-5-disci
pline-fees

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It's the parents who pay the fines, not the kids...so I wonder how many kids get what kind of punishment from poor and working-class parents who have to pay the fines? Making it more difficult for kids to get an education is NOT a worthwhile endeavor, in my opinion.

Never liked Emanuel anyway....mutter, grumble...